Anti Season 5

[missmystic]

Ok, so this is basically because I just need to vent about all the things that pissed me off this season. The last stretch of episodes have plenty of redeeming qualities, and yes I LOVED the finale. But there was so much stuff this season that I really couldn't stand, that I need to just yell about it for a min lol. This is in part because I have been rewatching it so my boyfriend can catch up, and its making me hostile lol. So I figured the Anti Boards were a good place to exercise my frustrations. And anyone who wants to join me, feel free!  I'll get the ball rolling.

Ok, so I got close to hating Elena a couple times this season, not gonna lie. There were SO many things that were totally out of character. One of the worst was when Stefan lost his memories and she was blatantly flirting with him for an entire episode! There was nothing innocent about it, in my opinion. It was deliberate flirting.  And to me that made her a really unlikeable person. Not only was it a crappy thing to do to Damon (DUH), but she also messed with Stefan's head, which is pretty cruel considering their history.  The Elena from the first 4 seasons would never have done that. She was loyal, and honest.  I REEEAALLLLY did not like ANY of that situation at all.

I really didn't like anything to do with college. It was stupid and didn't go anywhere. They killed off just about every new character almost immediately, and the ones that stuck around I didn't like. The whole Augustine thing was such a waste of time. The only thing even remotely interesting to come out of that was Enzo.  And they made all this noise and drama about Elena's father being involved, but it ultimately went nowhere and made no impact on the bigger picture, or really anything. They might as well have left that whole subplot out completely for all the relevance it had. 

The whole Tessa/Silas/Amara saga was really tiresome. We had SIX doppelgangers this season ... SIX! It was really cool when it was Katherine and Elena, back in the beginning. But adding Silas, and Amara, and Tom .... it just made it ridiculous for me. And although Silas and Tessa had some funny one-liners that I did enjoy, I also found it a little off-putting that they were so witty with the humor. Tessa had been dead for 2000 years, and Silas had been entombed as a statue for 2000 years, not really sure where they got their modern senses of humor from, but whatever.  And even though that storyline was getting old, at the same time I think they opened up a bunch of doors and unanswered questions, and then ended the plot too soon without explaining way too many things. Such as, why did the travelers kill Tessa? Was it just because she made the immortality spell? I know the witches were all about balance, but nature took care of it already by creating the doppelgangers, supposedly. There are SO many plot holes in this season, it makes my head spin. Here's a list:
How are Stefan and Damon related to Silas?
How was Tom related to Silas?
How was Katherine's family related to Amara?
When did Nadia have a kid? And what happened to that kid? It had to have grown up and had a family or Elena would not exist.
Why did the witches curse the Travelers to keep them from settling in one place together? Was it because of what Tessa and Silas did? Why would the witches blame ALL travelers for that?? That seems awfully extreme. But if so, why did the travelers kill Tessa then? They obviously felt the same way the witches did about the situation, so why was there animosity?? 2000 years of hate between 2 factions of witches seems like it should have a far more obvious and specific origin. 

Could all these things be rationalized if we, the fans, put our heads together and came up with explanations and hypothesis? Sure! Some people have already given it a try in other threads. But what bothers me is that we have to try and figure it out, and guess, and come up with explanations. They should have written it all into the plot and explained it themselves. And it's not because I don't like thinking about things, I love thinking about things. But the writers not answering any of these questions themselves feel lazy and sloppy to me, like they didn't really think it through or actually come up with answers themselves. What I like is when the show introduces a mystery, and then we the fans talk about what we think the mystery is all about, and guess and hypothesize. But then they tell us the answer eventually, and we all go "OOOHHHH!!!" or, "WHAT??" and we get to react to the story they have created. Having to create the story myself is not what I want from a tv show. That's what fan fiction is for.

Ok, I know this is getting long, but I'll just finish with a couple things. Caroline's incessant Damon hate throughout this season was really way more than necessary. I really didn't like it in season 4, but at least then it was somewhat understandable from her point of view. But this seson she just kept on it and on it and on it, and I really wanted to scream. Lastly, Markos was the worst villain ever. So boring, its just awful. He was such a waste of time and energy.

Ok, I'm done for now LOL.
 

[Doppelgänger]

The finale fixed it for me essentially...but oh yeah, season five could have been so much better...the whole 'toxic' thing made me livid, to try to sum up Delena as a bad thing after everything...no freaking way! Then the on again off again nature of Delena they tried to pull off just to keep us guessing was stupid at best.

[Doppelgänger]

Honestly though if that finale had not gone the way it did...but it seemed to me that at that point in time Delena was at peace. They were together. They had let go of their doubts about whether they should be together or not and things would have been different between them...but then Damon died...ugh!

[Charlotte]

Am going to try to keep this short or I will end up spending the entire summer here!
1. Damon killing Whitmores was a stupid plot twist and OOC. Why the angst over killing Jessica if he has been killing other innocents every so often. Also Damon knows better than anyone that children should not be punished for sins of their father.
2. Jeremy plastic bag incident.
3. Damon kills because Elena broke up with him. Because he is now13 years old, not 170? WTH.
4. Elena turns into Bella and almost faints because Stefan/Edward is so handsome, even though she never did that the entire time they were dating. And flirting with amnesia Stefan because ... Ok I can't even go here ... Perfect boyfriend... This entire episode, basically.
5. Toxic. This was soooo bad that the writers finally had to have Stefan . explain it to the audience to try to remedy the bad writing.
6. Muting Elena when she needed to speak. Cop out in an attempt to drag out triangle.
7. Queen Katherine loses all her street smarts and becomes a campy character.
8. The convoluted story lines. Augustine could have been good but was dropped. Between Silas-doppelgänger and Travelers storylines, I don't know which one I hated more. I didn't even bother following the mythology because it made no sense.
9. Putting Delena in the last five minutes of every episode repeating the same crap to try appease DEers after spending most of the episode on one form of various Paul/Nina characters.
10. The writing gave Stelenas stupid ammunition. Half the time Elena looked like she was in a trance. She should have punched Caroline after breakup breakfast.
Yes, the finale and end-of-season episodes won me back but I am not rewatching until later when writing got better.

[missmystic]

Jun 27, 2014 13:59:39 GMT -5 Charlotte said:

Am going to try to keep this short or I will end up spending the entire summer here!
1. Damon killing Whitmores was a stupid plot twist and OOC. Why the angst over killing Jessica if he has been killing other innocents every so often. Also Damon knows better than anyone that children should not be punished for sins of their father.
2. Jeremy plastic bag incident.
3. Damon kills because Elena broke up with him. Because he is now13 years old, not 170? WTH.
4. Elena turns into Bella and almost faints because Stefan/Edward is so handsome, even though she never did that the entire time they were dating. And flirting with amnesia Stefan because ... Ok I can't even go here ... Perfect boyfriend... This entire episode, basically.
5. Toxic. This was soooo bad that the writers finally had to have Stefan . explain it to the audience to try to remedy the bad writing.
6. Muting Elena when she needed to speak. Cop out in an attempt to drag out triangle.
7. Queen Katherine loses all her street smarts and becomes a campy character.
8. The convoluted story lines. Augustine could have been good but was dropped. Between Silas-doppelgänger and Travelers storylines, I don't know which one I hated more. I didn't even bother following the mythology because it made no sense.
9. Putting Delena in the last five minutes of every episode repeating the same crap to try appease DEers after spending most of the episode on one form of various Paul/Nina characters.
10. The writing gave Stelenas stupid ammunition. Half the time Elena looked like she was in a trance. She should have punched Caroline after breakup breakfast.
Yes, the finale and end-of-season episodes won me back but I am not rewatching until later when writing got better.

Totally agree with all of this! And that Katherine thing, you are so right. I didn't even realize why her character bothered me so much this season until you said that. In the beginning when the character was introduced, she was so diabolical. She was scary because she was smarter than all of them, and ruthless. But this season she was mostly just ... sad. Was it funny sometimes to see her having to deal with being mortal and in danger? Yeah sure, but they took it too far and made it campy, like you said. She just became the butt of everyone's jokes, and it got old. I miss old Katherine. And I'm sad that they killed her off.

[Charlotte]

Yeah, I loved to hate Katherine and I hated when they had her with Elijah. I liked her as a human but it was too over the top when she asked Nadia if she had to save Jeremy-- just stupid for Ms Pierce.

[Deleted]

Aside from the huge roller coaster that was DE's relationship for a good part of season 5, another point that was particularly disappointing was the way they handled Damon's past.

Here after five seasons, we finally get that piece of the puzzle of how season 1 Damon came to be, what made him turn off his switch, we came up with so many theories and tried to piece things together with what little we had of the gap in the flashbacks.

I felt that finally learning this piece about Damon's past was huge to his character and it's something that never left him and why he feels that he's this monster who's underserving of happiness and love.

What sucks is that proper build up was sacrificed all for the sake of shock value, the writers wanted to just spring this on us to get that shocked reaction from the audience. In the end the effect falls flat and leaves a lot of holes.

It's just silly to think that Damon wouldn't connect the name Whitmore from the college to Augustine, especially since it was not much long ago since he killed a Whitmore. Of course this had to remain hush hush or the impact of the shock they were going for wouldn't have been as effective.

I also don't feel it's in Damon's character to do something sneaky like this, go behind Elena's back to exact revenge and then return to her as if nothing has happened. After all the insecurities and finally believing that Elena truly loves him despite his flaws, him doing something controversial like that during the summer of their lives seems a bit off.

Though even if that was were they decided to go with Damon's character, I would have loved to see some actual moments of Damon having a moment or two to himself, contemplating to himself, moments where Elena comes in and is all, 'Hey are you alright?' because she feels something is off.

This would have built us up to it, we would have had an idea that something was going on in the background that the writers weren't quite ready to reveal. Any evidencial buildup would have been better than the, 'Surprise! I actually killed Sarah!'. The only reason I was so upset with that the first time was not that it had to do with Damon killing someone, but the fact that it literally came out of nowhere and at the time felt like a cheap plot device to bring up some conflict to keep Delena antagonistic and apart from each other.

Though while the writers thankfully managed to not drag this out with further drama and made Elena consistent and true to her season 4 words, there was still a break up in the long run.

My second part of the complaint from Damon's past, came from how Enzo's character who had so much potential, was evidently used as a plot device in the end.

Enzo was brought back to present day and feeling betrayed by Damon, begins to voice how much Damon leaving effected him, calling him a monster. This is where I felt that I knew where the writers were going. I thought later down in the season, there would come a point where Damon would be able to conquer this demon from his past and make things right from Enzo, thus he would no longer believe that he was this 'monster'.

But Enzo's character goes haywire and more bent on revenge (over Maggie who he only mentioned like one line every so episode before the flashback episode. Which can I say came out of nowhere since this was right after Damon and Elena's 3rd official break up) and that whole essence of Damon's past is lost. And Damon never gets to fully reconcile with Enzo, which felt like such a slap in the face to Damon fans. Bringing up this whole new point of Damon's past and not even seeing this through to the end with a proper conclusion? It's annoying when storylines come and go on this show, but Damon is the best written character on his show so I was expecting more from the writers to tie the knot on this.

Fortunately this may not be as much of a lost cause as Stefan's ripper past, something that barely gets talked about or referenced at all. Stefan doesn't even really to seem to have much of a blood problem anymore. I'm not even sure if he's on blood bags or animal blood still.

Anyways since Enzo was one of the people who were brought back again, the writers could have easily killed him and been done with it but they didn't. Damon himself doesn't even know that Enzo is back. So hopefully in season 6, whenever Damon manages to come back, this backstory between these two characters doesn't get completely dropped.

I was really looking forward to Damon wanting to help no humanity Enzo, before he pulled that random suicide on himself. But this will be one of the things that I hope to see more of come season 6. I just hope Enzo doesn't act like a complete dick to everyone, or do something stupid that causes him to get killed by the gang, or some new big bad uses him as a plot device and he dies. I want to be able to see some Alaric, Damon, and Enzo trio dynamics and stuff.

[missmystic]

Uch, just rewatched the "toxic" episodes. God it is just so beyond stupid. Every word that comes out of their mouths is just utter nonsense. "We do bad things for each other"? "We're bad for Jeremy"? "I killed someone because you broke up with me, that's how much power you have over me"?? UCH!!! So dumb. DUUMMMMBBBB. My boyfriend who's watching this season for the first time reacted with complete confusion lol. He was like, wait, I don't get it, nothing they're saying is true at all, this makes no sense. HA! I was like, YEP, you're absolutely right, it makes zero sense whatsoever. But really, it makes it even more clear the second time around that they were just scraping the bottom of the idea barrel to try and create conflict for Delena.

On another note, watching the episode where the Travelers do the mass suicide to bring Markos back, and noticed yet another lazy plot hole! All the Travelers drank Stefan and Elena's blood before they killed themselves ... seemingly implying that this is a key part of the spell to allow Markos to cross over ... So from episode 17 to episode 22 the writers apparently forgot that everyone in the Grill would have to ingest doppelganger blood before Damon and Elena could blow them up? Seriously?? Either that or the drinking of the doppelganger blood in the first place was just for show and unnecessary ... Seriously, they were clearly just phoning it in a lot of the time this season. I've moved on from angry and am now just sad.

And may I also ad that the character of Sloan is just as useless are Markos was. She is a completely non-person. We are given no emotional connection to her whatsoever. Remember a similar set of side characters with their own agenda by the names of Rose and Trevor? They were brought in just as suddenly, kidnaping Elena and causing problems. But in the space of 1 episode, after only just meeting these people, you already feel connected to them and to the bond between them, so much so that when Elijah kills Trevor and Rose is devastated, you actually care about it! As appose to Sloan ... who to be honest I didn't even remember her name from one episode to another, and wouldn't still if I hadn't seen it written down a bunch of times. Just a waste of time, again, in my opinion. I want old TVD writing back!! Still love the finale, looking forward to watching it again. But still. Next season had better be far and away better than this season.